


dead ringer

by inexorableformation



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Panic Attacks, Parent Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Supernatural Elements, the supernatural element is deadeye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24685021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexorableformation/pseuds/inexorableformation
Summary: he shoots; of course he doesor: deadeye works until it doesn't.
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Reaper | Gabriel Reyes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 87





	dead ringer

**Author's Note:**

> the implied character death here is neither of the characters tagged bc im not mean

He rolls to the side of the pillar and summons Deadeye. The whole plaza lights up. They don't see him, up top, they don't turn to him at all. Fire at other targets. Omnics, humans, AI- they're Talon. He focuses on the red of their armor before the red of the skulls closing in. He loses count (it's 33), can't remember (33), stares and stares and tightens his grip on Peacekeeper (33 skulls). There's no way to see details (he sees them all, their eyes, their expressions, the backs of their head). He squeezes the trigger and 32 faces are unfamiliar. Jesse's hand locks up, trembles, aches. Needs repairs, he thinks. Looks down. Not the metal. It's not the metal that doesn't work.

McCree pulls the trigger, anyway, and fifteen of the skulls vanish in an instant. Seven more follow, slow, slower. Then, a fracture at the back of his head, in his brain, in the very core of him. A cruel, violent snap like a branch being hit by lightning. His reflexes are sharp but the pain is sharper and his limbs stop obeying him. All strings cut and the puppet falls, crumbles like debris in a collapsing building. A commotion, down there, a sea of noise. McCree dips into it, head-first into the ocean. Agony, behind his eyes. He sees and sees nothing. Streaks of red, splintered vision. He rolls into an alcove, away from the guns and the fists and the guns and-

"You know you have a limit," Gabriel Reyes snaps. "You _idiot_ , you know you can't use it on this many people at once."

Jesse clings to his arm until the claws dig into his elbow. Stumbles, backwards, down stairs and into a lobby, into the present. When McCree lands on his back he feels nothing, stares up at Reaper's mask and the world keeps drifting apart. A mirror he punched to pieces until his knuckles bled when he watched the news and heard of fire. Agony, in his eyes. Splintered. Bleeding red, bleeding onto his nose and beard and the old serape with the frayed edges.

"McCree," Reaper says and his voice is all over the place. "Focus."

McCree raises Peacekeeper and points it towards the stairs. The claws. The mask. The tension in his human hand, the broken one, hurts. He shakes and shakes and drops the gun. Of course he drops the gun. Watches the wraith approach him. Mute. Staring up, up, up.

"We have to go," Reaper says. "Come on."

McCree bleeds from his eyes. Bleeds from his heart, too.

"Go where?"

#

McCree chases smoke.

"Go where?" he asks.

"Main street," Reaper says.

"Train station," Reaper says.

"There's a place you can rest two blocks ahead," Reaper says. "An old clinic. You can make it. Come on."

McCree follows.

#

McCree dreams of killing seven men in the desert because someone puts a gun to his head when he is fifteen years old. If he doesn't he'll die. I don't wanna kill I don't wanna die I don't wanna kill. Deadeye does the job for him.

McCree dreams of the fracture in his head but not his skull. The day he kills someone without the gun pressed to his scalp- of screaming in terror and relief and terror again when Gabriel Reyes finds out.

"Does it hurt you?"

"Not much," Jesse said.

"But it does."

"It's only really bad if it's a lot of people."

"But it does hurt you," Reyes said.

"I can still make it work. I can still-"

"-kill yourself in an attempt to be 'useful'?"

McCree dreams of being surrounded one time, only one, and summoning ten skulls to save three lives. Of his friends, his family, hugging him close and get well soon flowers at his bedside.

"Don't throw your life away, kid," Reyes says.

"That an order?"

"It's a request."

#

McCree's head rests on bathroom tiles. He keeps his eyes shut. His legs propped up, his back against the floor. The haze lifts, with time.

"You aren't gonna kill me."

"Of course not," Reaper says and it's more tired than insulted. "Did you think I was gonna lead you to them?"

"Sorta. Didn't think a whole lot."

"Then why come with me at all?"

"Old habit."

Reaper laughs, somewhere to the left, somewhere not too far away. More tired than bitter. More tired than anything.

"Why?" McCree asks the void before his inner eye, the starless expanse. "Why help me?"

A silence to accompany the empty space Deadeye carved. The presence is still close, the ghost.

"I-" Reaper starts. "I'm not sure how to answer that."

"Didn't think it was a difficult question."

"You'd be surprised."

"Yeah. I am. You gonna give me an answer?"

Another silence. A small noise like the flutter of wings as Reaper shifts, moves, paces. Outside the windows, down on the streets, heavy footsteps pass. Orders barked at other people yelling orders. Talon, Talon, talons on the wall tiles.

"I don't know where to start."

"Anywhere," McCree says and it's harsher than he wanted. "Explain anything."

The presence flinches.

"The explosion in Switzerland killed me. I didn't get out. Didn't make it."

"Coulda fooled me."

"I don't think I fooled anyone, least of all you."

McCree bites his tongue. Opens his eyes, just once, to see the skull the owl the mask and closes them again. His head swims along with his thoughts, the leaden weight in his stomach. A drop of blood slides down the bridge of his nose and he wipes it off, fingers sticking together as if in tar. Dragging him down to the depths where he can't see.

"So you're not Reyes."

"I wouldn't say I am, no."

"Who are you, then?"

"You ask a lot of questions I can't answer," Reaper says. "I want to. But I can't. I don't know how to."

"Then what do you want me to say?"

"Right now I want to get you out of this city alive."

"Why?" McCree asks again and it's only hurt, only cruel desperate confusion.

Reaper hesitates and his voice is a wire, an electric hum.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You're not Reyes."

The shadows curl around a singular emotion, a simple pain. McCree shakes through the waves of his own bitterness, the fracture in his head gathering grief.

"You're not Reyes," he repeats and bites blood out of his tongue. "You're not."

#

McCree abandons the smoke as the Detonator gives chase. Empty street, robotic sounds reverberating around his skull. Within the fissure. The gap between life and death widens with every pulse, every hasty breath. It catches up, the nightmare. Heat on the back of his neck, the promise of burning. McCree summons Deadeye before he turns, summons the last of what he has.

The smoke, however, pushes him aside.

McCree's scattered vision shows Reaper die a thousandfold. He can't tell what it is (he can, he can, oh god he can), has to be bullets (it's shrapnel, cutting deep and cutting plentiful). No blood. Smoke in spades, a torrent and a cloud and then nothing, not a wisp of it. He's alone.

McCree opens his mouth but has no name to call for. Throws up before his knees and scrambles backwards against the wall. Deadeye begins to mend. The fracture closes. He wraps his arms around himself and rocks forward once, just once. Freezes on the return and watches the Detonator's remains seep into the ground, the energy dispelled. He is whole again but still alone.

"No," he says and clutches his upper arms until his nails leave crescent marks, until the metal bites into flesh. "Nononononono."

McCree screams with his lips pressed together, his teeth grinding, the many streets in his vision breaking, breaking. Eventually, it calms. Eventually, there's movement among the rubble.

A wisp of smoke, barely alive. He is there in an instant, cupping his hands around it like he would a small bird with a broken wing. McCree carries it to a safer spot, the unkindled flame, the embers.

#

"Tell me how to help you," Reyes said. "Doesn't have to be now. But I need to know what to do when it happens."

Jesse scratched his head underneath the cowboy hat, crooked grin, crooked frown.

"'S gonna sound kinda wild. You might not believe me, boss."

"Try me."

"Strong emotions don't help. Dunno why. But when I hear emotional stuff or worry or anythin' like that Deadeye doesn't appreciate it. 'S better to save that for when _'m_ better, I think."

"You got it. Anything else?"

Jesse smiled wide.

"Company's always good. Knowin' I'm not alone."

#

Reaper reforms from the wisp of smoke, rebuilds himself from the ashes until he's kneeling on the floor, gasping and sputtering as more fog pours from the mask. He takes it off, tosses it to the side, and breathes. Looks up.

"Why?" McCree asks and his throat hurts, his eyes, his chest. He shakes in the cold and would shake through summer, too.

Reaper stares at him. No pupils, no iris, solid black except for two bright spots. When he clenches his teeth it shows through the frayed skin of his cheeks. The smoke bleeds on.

"Because you're my son," he says.

A blink. A hairline fissure.

The force of McCree's hug almost knocks Reaper to the ground again. One of them is shaking (it's both of them). McCree cries before he even fully wraps his arms around Reaper, before he buries his face against his shoulder. Speaks but it's a mess, violent sobbing, apologies, an endless string half-words half-sounds until the slow motion of Reaper's hand across his hair, his back, calms him down. The shaking continues.

"I couldn't explain a lot when you were still-"

"I know," McCree says and curls up against him. "I know, boss, it woulda just fucked me up worse and 'm sorry I was mad and-"

"Breathe."

McCree does. Cries as much as he laughs and then cries again, dried blood flaking off his face.

"You're here," he says. "I thought- I thought you were gone. Either entirely or 'cause of Talon."

"I'm not."

"I didn't wanna shoot you."

"You didn't. You almost killed yourself because you didn't, actually."

McCree blinks. Functional. What he sees is smoke and he tightens the hug. The wave of emotion hits him. Intense enough to be painful. It's not. It's a decade of grief bleeding away.

"You do the same thing," he says. "Same exact thing. Don't pretend that's not where I got that from."

Reaper snorts.

"Of all the things to take away from what I taught you."

"Didn't say it was all I learned."

"I would hope not."

"'S not! It's really not."

They both laugh with the same crazed edge, the same happy disbelief, clutching each other close. McCree huffs softly when Reaper rests his chin on his head and the laughter doesn't stop bubbling up from his chest, the deep scar on the mend.

"You'll prolly get in trouble for helpin' me," he says. "Talon ain't gonna be happy."

Reaper squeezes his shoulder.

"I appreciate the thought but that's the least of my concerns."

"Not worried at all?"

"It doesn't matter, I'll deal with it. There were no other options."

"Coulda let me die."

"As I said," Reaper mumbles, a low hum, "no other options."

McCree stares, mutely, into the black fabric of the coat. Laughs again, holds on tight.

"Some things don't change, huh?"

"You're my son," Reaper says.

#

There's just one skull. No pain when he pulls the trigger. No blood when he reloads Peacekeeper, goes on his way. The smoke finds him minutes later, minutes away from the corpse.

"Thanks," Reaper says.

"What for?"

"Finishing the job."

"Some people need killin'," McCree shrugs. "I get not wanting to go back. 'S the least I coulda done."

He laughs when Reaper puts an arm around his shoulders, ruffles his hair.

"C'mon, boss, you know I got your back."

"That a threat?"

"'S a promise."


End file.
